Hidden in the forests of Ecuador and Colombia, the furry little critter -- the olinguito is related to raccoons -- evaded science journals until researchers from the Smithsonian Institution identified it last week.

But while it's cute, it's not the cutest animal in the world.

In fact, after our highly unscientific office poll at CNN Travel, we don't even think it makes the top 20.

According to a New York Times report from 2006 on several studies of cuteness, "cute images stimulate the same pleasure centers of the brain aroused by sex, a good meal or psychoactive drugs like cocaine."

For the best chance of glimpsing a koala in the wild, you need only to book a trip to Australia's Otway Coast, where koalas can be found chilling by the Grey River, Kennett River, Wye River and Wongarra.

A team of on-board naturalists help identify gentoo, Adélie, king and emperor penguins.

13. Red panda

Red pandas share little in terms of appearance with their monochromatic cousins, the great pandas.

With a bushy, ringed tail like a raccoon, pointed ears and reddish-brown coloring like a fox and short legs, these arboreal balls of fluff have always been difficult to classify.

The red panda sleeps with its tail wrapped around its body, and is identifiable by russet fur with white patches on the snout, "eyebrows," cheeks and ears.

There are few of these adorable animals in the wild and their shyness makes them hard to find.

To see a red panda contact one of several conservation and research centers for pandas in China, such as Chengdu Panda Base. The research center also has enclosures for great pandas, golden monkeys and South China tiger.

12. Beluga whale

It even has a party trick -- air rings.

About four meters long, the white, baby-faced beluga whale, which makes its home in the colder seas of the Arctic and sub-Arctic, is about one-fifth the size of a blue whale.

With its relatively small size, benign facial structure and lump on the forehead (called a melon), the beluga whale is undeniably adorable.

While beluga whales in captivity and can chirp on command and blow bubbles, those who'd rather see this animal in the wild can contact Sea North Tours, based in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, which operates a Beluga and Fort Tour.

Churchill is also known for its Polar Bear Jail, where bears who've wandered too far into town are incarcerated for their own safety.

11. Clown fish

Sure, real clown fish can't talk or pop open their eyes for that comic Pixar effect, but they can do cooler things, such as switch genders.

Clown fish can be found with their aquatic buddies, the sea anemones.

The sea anemone's poison -- which doesn't affect the clown fish -- protects the clown fish from predators and the clown fish pays for the protection by eating the anemone's leftovers and keeping the house clean.

Apo Island in the Philippines has a Marine Sanctuary with a clown fish city, with hundreds of clown fish milling about in bright orange schools.

The closest you might be able to get is to visit Las Chinchillas National Reserve, a chinchilla sanctuary in Chile run by the Chilean National Forest Corporation (CONAF)(Spanish). Let's Go Chile, a Chilean tourist company, has a guide on its website.

No larger than a bee, it also acts like one, helping plants reproduce by transferring pollen as it flits from flower to flower sipping nectar. And it flits to a lot of flowers, eating every 10 minutes.

Ecotour company Natural Habitat Adventures offers harp seal expeditions to the Magdalen Islands, off the coast of Quebec, starting at $4,995.

3. Giant panda

The black and white coloring, fat butt and contemplative way they chew their bamboo: one might never stop listing the qualities that make the giant panda so charming.

The panda's inefficient dining habits -- although it has the digestive system of a carnivore it eats like a herbivore, consuming up to 38 kilos of bamboo in a single day -- make them extremely dependent on their habitat to survive.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (whose logo is a stylized panda) there are only about 1,600 pandas left in the wild.

As the smallest primate in the world, the arboreal, nocturnal Philippine tarsier has all the basic qualities of cute: enormous eyes set in a tiny body no bigger than a human fist and tiny knobbly paws with which it grasps onto tree branches.

Tarsiers are notoriously unhappy in captivity.

According to the Philippine Tarsier Foundation, each tarsier needs at least a hectare of space, and captive tarsiers have been known to commit suicide by bashing in their own skulls.

While that isn't exactly cute, it does make it fairly obvious that the only chance you'll ethically be able to see a tarsier is in the wild.

The Philippine Tarsier Foundation runs the Philippine Tarsier and Wildlife Sanctuary in the forest of Corella, Bohol, where tarsiers roam freely.